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Fiksu: iOS Downloads Hit All-Time High in October

User acquisition and marketing company Fiksu has released its indexes for October 2014, which show the full impact of the release of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, as well as Apple’s iOS 8 operating system. The App Store Competitive Index, which tracks the average number of daily downloads for the top 200 free iPhone apps in the US, hit an all-time high in October, at 7.8 million. That’s an increase of 42 percent over September and an increase of 39 percent year-over-year.

These increased downloads were driven heavily by the release of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, as users purchased new phones and immediately went to work downloading their favorite (or even new) apps. This also increased the Cost per Install for the month to $1.46, a 21 percent increase month-over-month, and a 59 percent increase from this time last year. On Android, the Cost per Install increased just one percent from September, to $1.10. That’s an increase of 2 percent year-over-year.

While Cost per Install increased, the Cost per Loyal User index fell to $2.16 on iOS, down from September’s $2.25. Fiksu also attributes this decline to new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus owners, who, when purchasing their new devices, will typically go straight for their must-have apps as they setup their phones, indicating their loyalty to those developers and brands.Fiksu encourages developers to capitalize on “untapped Android opportunities” in the coming months, as the Cost per Launch index (which tracks the cost of driving engagement from mobile users) showed increases on iOS in October, but a 26 percent year-over-year decrease on Android.

“While recent indexes have shown a steady stream of escalating costs, the October index numbers validate another important trend: the increasing importance of apps to consumers,” said Micah Adler, CEO of Fiksu, in a statement. “Mobile marketers must start thinking strategically about their marketing tactics over the longer term and figure out how to use apps to connect with customers. October’s hindsight should serve as a guide for marketers preparing for impending holiday activity.”

Fiksu’s complete October indexes are available here. It should be noted Fiksu has updated the formulas used to calculate its Cost per Install and Cost per Launch metrics, with the goal of “more accurately representing how the incentivized traffic impacts” those figures. As a result, some previous months’ data has been changed to reflect the new formulas.